


Pagliacci's Paradox

by Blissymbolics



Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti)
Genre: Codependency, Depression, Graphic Description, M/M, Mentions of Rape, Mentions of child sexual abuse, Pre-Canon, Suicidal Thoughts, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, Violent Thoughts, definitely not a sweet meet cute, it's a suicide hotline so there are many upsetting calls, mentions of child death, suicide of minor character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-27
Updated: 2020-10-23
Packaged: 2021-03-07 21:15:39
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 15,462
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26684284
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Blissymbolics/pseuds/Blissymbolics
Summary: “Hi, you probably don’t remember me, but I’m Eddie. I called I think about five weeks ago.”“Yeah, of course I remember you.”You never forget your first.A stand-up comedian working the graveyard shift at a suicide hotline. It sounds like the setup to some tasteless joke.
Relationships: Eddie Kaspbrak/Richie Tozier
Comments: 78
Kudos: 378





	1. Chapter 1

February, 2001

_“New York City Suicide Prevention. Thank you for reaching out. How can I help you?”_

Richie suddenly feels like he’s standing beneath a bright spotlight in a dark theater, the heat of the industrial bulb searing into the crown of his head. His right hand is gripping the phone, and his left is still tingling from the act of wrapping the curled cord around his forearm and tightening it until his circulation stalled. He sat in bed for maybe an hour staring at the number, debating whether or not his situation was serious enough to actually make the call.

Time has been moving slowly. Mentally it feels like he’s watched three movies over the course of an hour, but all in disjointed clips and vignettes. When one performance grew too graphic, he’d dredge up something even darker to rig the scales. He felt the plates of his skull overlapping and compressing until his filters eroded and he found himself muttering self-abuse in the dark. And when the pain grew too intimate, he'd distract himself by imagining what it would be like to walk down to the subway station three blocks from here and step in front of the train.

He wasn’t going to do it, obviously. It was just a mental exercise, testing the limits of how far his imagination could take him. He recreated the station with the precision of a child memorizing their favorite movie: the curve of the trashcans, the cracks covering the plexiglass maps, the demonic screech of the approaching train and pinprick lights rounding the corner.

The thing is, Richie hates pain. He hates it probably no more or less than anybody else. Dying that way would be quick, but certainly not painless. And besides, he wasn’t going to do it, so dwelling on the consequences and technicalities wasn’t important.

That’s why this call is pointless. Of course he’s not going to do it, so why the fuck is he wasting their time?

He always does this. He gets fucked up for a night, picks at the scab until it bleeds, then convinces himself he’s teetering on the edge because he forgot to eat a vegetable for two weeks. It’s a cycle he’s been repeating as long as he can remember, but this is the first time he’s actually stooped low enough to call the number printed on the back of the phonebook. And now he feels stupid, as if he just called 911 over a broken lightbulb.

 _“Hello? Can you hear me okay?”_ the woman on the other end asks.

Richie should just hang up and stop wasting her time. Tell her he overreacted, he just fucked himself up for no reason, but he’s fine now. Have a good night, ma’am. I’m fine.

But if he hangs up he’ll have to return to being alone inside his head, and the benefits of this brief reprieve will dry up within a second, and the movie will keep playing right where he left off. He’ll fall asleep imagining what his body would look like mangled by the wheels of the train: crushed like a piece of roadkill, the rats picking at his guts. The image is so vivid he could draw it.

“Sorry, um…” he starts, then stops, panicking like he just forgot his line in a play.

 _“Take your time,”_ the woman says in a gentle Hispanic accent.

The tingling in his arm is no longer painful, and now it feels kind of pleasant. He stares at the yellow street light outside his window, suddenly feeling strangely high. Like he just licked a stamp and now there’s a stranger sitting beside him in the pillow fort of his head. Richie knows he should hang up and let her get back to her job, but if he does, the lights will go back out, and he’ll have no one else to call.

“Sorry, I was just wondering… how’d you get into this? The suicide hotline thing? I think I’d like to try it out.”

It feels criminal that they even let Richie attend the orientation. They should probably be sued for liability simply for letting him through the door. All the other participants seem, for lack of a better word, well-adjusted. There’s a grad student in psychology, a woman in her forties who was helped ten years prior and wants to pay it forward, a man who lost his sister to an overdose, a high school counselor who wants better insight into her students, and then there’s Richie: an unsuccessfully aspiring stand-up comedian who spends his days stacking crates in warehouses along the docks and at night roams the comedy circuit indulging in what is probably technical alcoholism.

He doesn’t need to volunteer for a fucking suicide hotline. He needs therapy, a glass of water, and maybe a low-stakes hobby. He has no reason to be here, and as the instructor goes around the circle and asks each participant what inspired them to volunteer, he considers justifying his presence by creating an imaginary friend or relative who tragically took their own life, but that feels a bit too sociopathic. So when it comes to his turn, he simply says, “I just want to help people.”

After the orientation is over, he expects the instructor to pull him aside and politely ask him to never come back, but to his surprise, she just thanks him for coming and says she hopes to see him next week for their first night of training.

Richie spends that week following his normal routine: drinking too much, sleeping too little, and debating whether or not it would even be ethical to go back. But then Thursday night rolls around, and he decides that ethical or not, it’s as good an excuse as any to get out of the house. Besides, the people are nice and they offer free snacks. There are worse ways he could spend his evenings.

The funny thing is, he’s actually pretty good at it. All the half-baked skills he’s amassed through stand-up really help him out: improvisation, adaptability, reading a room, calculating what to say under high pressure, even speaking clearly and enunciating his words is apparently a skill he took for granted. Of course it's not a one-to-one alignment, but he's definitely more adept at talking to strangers than he is at stacking crates, which he somehow manages to fuck up on almost a daily basis.

Still, his imposter syndrome deserves its own professional diagnosis. Every Thursday night he shows up for training looking like an actor hired to play the part of the suicidal caller, but for some reason, his classmates treat him like one of their own, which makes him feel like a convicted felon sitting on a jury.

They don’t know about the chronic, low-grade hangover that’s probably given him irreparable brain damage. They don’t know about the violent, self-destructive thoughts that infiltrate his mind whenever he lets his guard down. And they don’t know how many times he’s had sex in public restrooms with anonymous men.

Apparently his disguise is decent enough, because after several months of lecturing, roleplaying, and shadowing, he finds himself sitting at a desk just past midnight staring down at a standard-issue office phone sitting beside a heavy computer monitor the color of spoiled milk.

That’s when his anxiety begins to kick in. He never thought he would make it to this point. It was just a joke that went too far. And as half an hour ticks by without a single call, he starts to panic. Seriously panic. He was going to get someone killed. Objectively, he was going to be responsible for someone’s death. He’d say the wrong thing, ask the wrong questions, and then he’d have to listen to a stranger choke out their last breath.

If he were directly responsible for someone’s death, then he would have no choice but to step out in front of that train. A life for a life, the simplest exchange there is.

That’s when it hits him: something obvious, yet important.

He doesn’t want to die.

Now that he has concrete potential to destroy someone’s life and forfeit his own, he realizes that he doesn’t fucking want to die. He doesn’t want to jump in front of that train, or swallow that bottle of Tylenol PM, or jump off the Brooklyn Bridge. He wants to live and be happy and he almost starts crying as a deranged smile spreads across his face and a tranquil sense of lucidity grounds him to the floor.

That’s when the phone starts ringing.

It feels like a scene in a movie: the ringing phone at the end of the dark hall. Someone’s waiting for him on the other end of the line, and if he doesn’t pick up, he could be responsible for their death. But if he does answer, and screws it up, the same outcome could occur. He’s damned if he does and damned if he doesn’t. But he’s the one who got himself into this mess. His shift is only six hours long, midnight to 6:00 am. If he can just make it to dawn, then he can leave and never come back. Just keep these people alive until morning. Keep them alive and you’ll get to live as well.

“New York City Suicide Prevention. Thank you for reaching out. How can I help you?”

At first he doesn’t hear anything, and the silence makes him feel like he’s hanging off the edge of a skyscraper. But then he strains his ear, and can vaguely make out the sound of muffled breathing.

They covered this scenario in training. Sometimes people take a while to speak, and sometimes they won’t speak at all. Sometimes dialing the phone is the most they can handle, and simply sitting with another person is as much as they need. Goosebumps shoot up his arms as he thinks about some stranger out there in New York, sitting alone at one in the morning, scared and in pain, baselessly hoping that Richie will somehow make things better.

As the silence stretches on, the weight of responsibility begins to crush him as catastrophic hypotheticals crowd his mind.

What if this person isn’t just trying to gather their thoughts? What if they’re actively dying? What if they slit their wrists or downed a bottle of pills and are lying there unresponsive? What if–

“Hi,” a quiet, male voice hits his ear.

“Hi,” he says in return, his brain full of helium and all sense of past and future compartmentalized into separate dimensions.

Good, this person is alive. They’re alive and probably just nervous. Richie needs to calm the fuck down. He knows he’s overreacting. After all, most of the people calling aren’t actively suicidal. Most are just desperate to talk to someone – anyone – that will listen without judgment and make their agony a bit less lonely. Besides, worst case scenario, if it’s more than he can handle he can always transfer the call to someone with more experience.

It’ll be fine. Everything will be fine.

“I’m Eddie,” the man says.

Eddie. For some reason that name immediately lights up his memory, the way the smell of canned peaches always triggers a flashback of eating them on the floor of his first apartment at eighteen. But it’s frustrating since he can’t match a face to the name. It’s just a nagging familiarity, a charge of electricity with no vessel.

“Hi Eddie, I’m Richie.”

He feels like he’s in first grade introducing himself to another kid, and suddenly he worries that his tone is too infantilizing. There’s sweat building around his forehead and his hand is beginning to shake.

“Hi,” Eddie says again, softer than before.

Then he starts crying.

It’s quiet at first, but builds steadily. His breathing grow sharper, gasps cutting past his teeth as he tries to gulp back heavy sobs. Short whines escape through the barrier of his mouth, and Richie feels his eyes growing damp as he absorbs every sound.

“Do you want to talk or do you just need to cry?” Richie asks.

Eddie inhales through his nose, then lets out a series of sobs in clipped, raspy breaths.

“Cry,” he finally answers.

“Go ahead,” Richie replies. “Cry all you need.”

Once Eddie has permission, he doesn’t hold back. He sobs into the phone in rhythmic waves, briefly quieting down before swelling up again with renewed anguish. He starts coughing, catches his breath, then cries some more.

Richie tries not to cry along with him. He pinches his eyes shut and keeps his mouth drawn tight. He tries to mentally distance himself, but fails terribly. He was told to limit the calls to half an hour if he can, and after twenty-five minutes of uninterrupted crying, he knows he can’t keep Eddie on the line much longer.

He knew from the beginning that cutting people off was going to be a necessary evil, but now that the clock on his monitor is rapidly approaching the half hour mark, the reality of hanging up the phone on a suicide caller seems cruel enough to earn him a place in hell.

But he has to do it. This man is in pain, but he’ll be fine. Richie’s done all he can for him, and now there are other people who need him more.

“Eddie, we try to limit calls to thirty minutes if we can. Will you be okay if we say goodbye?”

He feels like he’s talking like a fucking kindergarten teacher. In regular conversation he tosses in a swear every other word. He hopes his tone doesn’t come across as patronizing, or some faux customer service schtick.

Fortunately, Eddie doesn’t seem annoyed. He clears his throat and audibly sucks the snot back into his nose as his sobs come to a standstill.

“Yeah, I’ll be okay,” he replies, his voice a bit steadier than it was before. “Thanks.”

Richie feels something warm bloom beneath his ribs. The pressure around his eyes begins to ease, and suddenly he feels weightless in his chair. Remember this moment, he tells himself. This perfect high, this natural euphoria, remember it, and save it for a rainy day.

“You’re welcome,” Richie replies. “Take care of yourself.”

“You too. Bye.”

Richie keeps the phone pressed to his ear long after the line goes dead.


	2. Chapter 2

From there on out, things get both better and worse. That first call was somehow both his hardest and his easiest. But now the training wheels were off, and sometimes it feels like he’s barreling down a steep hill without any brakes. His fear of failure is no less acute, but eventually the low-risk calls begin to feel mundane.

Some nights are slow. Between calls he’ll chat with his coworkers, scribble out jokes in his notebook, or just stare at his monitor and dwell on things he definitely should have left at home.

But then the phone will start ringing, and suddenly he’s someone else. Suddenly he’s not some closet case fuck up living off salted pasta and $1 pizza. No, he’s professional, calm, a helpful, kind stranger dedicating his precious free time spare of charge to helping the less fortunate. He’s a hero in the community. He’s saving lives. He’s making a difference. Direct action, no gains, no glory, just the satisfaction of being a Good Samaritan.

Then the call will end, and he’ll go back to thinking about what he would write in his note.

He thought the most difficult calls would come from people with problems far worse than bad brain chemistry: homeless people, addicts, sick people buried in debt, people whose lives had been systemically stripped away, leaving them with nothing but their skin and bones. Richie thought those calls would be the hardest, because no, he can’t pull these people out of poverty, but he does have a sleek white binder full of resources that might help.

The thing is, the people making those calls fundamentally want to live, and oftentimes all they need is the barest crumb to make it till morning. This is New York City; there are tons of free resources if you know where to look. Sometimes all it takes is a number for them to call, the address of a safe house, a center that offers free counseling, or simply directions to a soup kitchen where they can get a hot meal. Usually one step is enough, and that one step can lead to many more, and suddenly they can see a path emerging in the woods, and usually that’s enough.

The cases that can’t be blamed on objective adversity are exponentially more difficult. Many of Richie’s calls come from people with supportive families, decent employment, and resources sitting at their disposal, and yet they still feel like death is more palatable than the alternative.

He received a call from a Broadway performer distraught because he didn’t get his dream role. Then he got a call from a businessman earning upwards of $150k who fantasized about jumping off the roof of his building. Then he spoke to a seventeen-year-old girl who couldn’t stop obsessing over the excess weight hanging around her stomach, and she disclosed her grim fantasy of taking a knife to her gut and simply cutting it away. She’d been saving pennies and dimes for liposuction, which she planned on getting as soon as she turned eighteen. But her savings were short, and she’d rather kill herself than submit to the humiliation of attending her first college party in anything other than a tube top.

How is Richie supposed to convince these people that their anxieties are not rational? The answer: he can’t, and attempting to do so would be pointless. They’re not calling for a reality check; they’re calling because they’re too ashamed to confess these feelings to their friends and family, or they tried, only to be brushed off, laughed at, or told there are children starving in Africa.

So Richie just lets them talk, asking questions when it feels pertinent, and slowly uncovering the deeper rot beneath, like an off-color tooth secretly blackened to the root. They spoke of their fears of failure, abandonment, the certainty that they will never be loved, the conviction that all of this was ultimately pointless: universal fears that Richie knows all too well. Sometimes the calls go nowhere. Sometimes all it takes is one good rant for them to see the forest from the trees. Sometimes they ask for professional help, and sometimes they don’t want anything. They just want Richie to make things better, and sometimes they get angry when he can’t.

A large percent of the calls end up being fake, which he was told would be the case. Prank calls with no punchline. His first was from a teenage boy, his voice barely pubescent, who tried not to snicker as he told Richie that he was thinking of killing himself because all the girls at school were too afraid to fuck him because of his giant dick.

Most people hate these calls, but Richie finds them strangely endearing. These are people – predominantly children – for whom the thought of suicide has probably never crossed their minds. Sometimes they’re a bit older – college age – but still, there’s a strange innocence in such a prank, and Richie finds himself praying that they’ll never have to utilize the line for its intended purpose.

If their office isn’t busy, he finds that rather than hanging up it’s better to indulge them. Give them a “haha good one guys.” Let them know they’ve fulfilled their purpose without the satisfaction of getting under his skin. And once they’ve had their laugh he puts on his best cool uncle voice and kindly asks them not to call again. Usually he makes up a lie about how they’re short-staffed, and if a serious case comes through they could be responsible for someone’s death. Of course they knew this before calling, but being confronted with it directly is usually enough for them to curl in shame and promise they won’t call again.

Then there’s another category of fake callers, and they’re exponentially worse. Richie works the Wednesday night graveyard shift with five other people, but he’s the only man. This means he’s more likely than the rest to get callers who flake out and hang up before he can even finish his opening greeting. During training he was forewarned that a lot of men get off on making these calls. They dial the number in search of a woman, and hang up the second they hear a male voice. Some of them are just too cheap or broke to pay for phone sex, but for most of them, having an unconsenting audience is the entire point.

Their methods are creative. Sometimes the caller will start with a sob story about how his wife recently passed away. He’ll play the part, ham up the waterworks, cry about how much he misses her. How kind, caring, and beautiful she was. Eventually he’ll arrive at the topic of sex, how much he misses it, how important it was in their relationship, how his wife always gave him exactly what he needed. By the time the operator figures out his game, he’s already masturbating to the sound of her voice. The calls are not rare either. They’re so prevalent that one woman who Richie went through training with quit after only two shifts.

So being male has its benefits, but there’s also a trade off. Sometimes people will call and explicitly ask for a man because they’re too ashamed to confess their demons to a woman. When Richie first took this job he knew the calls wouldn't just be from bullied teens and heartbroken lovers. Sometimes this job requires helping people who by the standards of society have no right to live. But the laws of society and morality do not exist here. This is an embassy sheltering strangers from the confines of human decency, a neutrality zone unlike any other. There’s no tracking software, no mandatory information, anonymity pushing the limits of morality.

Richie’s first call of this nature was from a man who confessed to raping his eight-year-old daughter.

Richie went somewhere else for that call. Somewhere that no philosopher could ever hope to reach. That conversation took place in another world: a place empty and unmoored. The man's wife already knew. His boss knew, his friends knew, and the police probably did as well. So Richie's only obligation was to sit there and listen, laid bare as the man spun himself in circles trying to rationalize how this was everyone’s fault but his own.

Richie said maybe less than a hundred words over the course of that fifteen minute call, barely sentient inside his own head.

“Are you afraid of prison?”

_“Yes.”_

“Do you have a plan to take your life?”

_“No.”_

“Do you want to see your daughter grow up?”

_“Yes.”_

Richie deliberately avoided checking the news for the next week. He doesn’t want to know what happened to that man. He wants to maintain the illusion that he simply ceased to exist after hanging up the phone, no more real than a character in a movie.

Whenever a call ends, whether it’s from a rape victim or a rapist, he has to ask himself: is this really helping me?

The answer is no. Not in the slightest.

He stopped going to standup after the second week, which is stupid since comedy is by far a better coping mechanism than whatever the fuck this is. He’s started smoking again – frequently – and the handful of acquaintances he was on drinking terms with have more or less dropped out of his orbit. And that’s not to mention the nightmares, which have started crossing the boundary into night terrors. Sleep used to be a reliable escape, but now it’s simply a theater where he gets to reenact all the painful stories sitting inside his head.

You need skin stronger than fucking diamonds for a job like this, which Richie certainly does not have. You could tear him apart like paper. You could throw him in the river and he’d probably dissolve. This line of work has a very basic rule, and that’s don’t take your work home with you, but that’s a challenge considering that these Wednesday night therapy sessions have become his entire social life. And sometimes he’ll just sit there in silence, watching the phone, waiting for his next dose of maladjusted intimacy.

Just breathe, he tells himself. Just breathe and write your little jokes and drown yourself in the Hudson. It’s nice this time of year.

The phone starts ringing. It’s his third call of the night.

“New York City Suicide Prevention. Thank you for reaching out. How can I help you?”

_“Hi, um, this is kind of a weird question, but is someone named Richie working right now?”_

The voice is familiar, and Richie recognizes it instantly.

“Yeah, that’s me,” he replies.

_“Oh, hi, you probably don’t remember me, but I’m Eddie. I called I think five weeks ago.”_

“Yeah, of course I remember you.”

 _You never forget your first,_ he almost says.

 _“Cool,”_ Eddie responds, followed by an awkward silence.

“How are you feeling?” Richie asks. Clearly he’s still alive, which isn’t nothing.

_“I’m good. Really good, actually. That’s actually why I wanted to call. I wanted to thank you for talking to me. Or not talking, for just… you know.”_

Richie swallows. His eyes start to burn. He knew it wasn’t uncommon for people to call back and offer their thanks, but this is the first time he’s been on the receiving end. One of the integral principles of this job is humility. You’re not a hero, you’re just a normal person volunteering at a hotline. Self-righteousness can be dangerous. Sanctimosity helps no one. But damn, the confirmation that he actually helped someone sure is a contact high.

“Don’t mention it,” Richie replies, unsure how to properly receive the compliment.

 _“Yeah, I mean, I wasn’t actually going to do anything,”_ Eddie continues. _“I was just having a bad night. I just moved here, I was stressed, couldn’t sleep, and I didn’t have anyone else to call. And just being on the phone for a while really helped.”_

Richie begins coiling the phone cord around his finger like a lovesick schoolgirl.

“Happy I could be of service. So how are you liking the city so far?”

Richie knows he should probably just thank him and hang up, but he just spent a full hour talking with a woman who lost her son and daughter-in-law in a double suicide after the death of their baby. So needless to say, he’s desperate for some generic smalltalk.

_“Eh, it’s alright. I haven’t really explored much.”_

“Oh yeah? What’ve you been getting up to?”

_“I moved here for work, so I’ve pretty much just been going in a triangle between home, work, and the grocery store.”_

“Triangles can be okay. If you had to make it a square, where else would you go?”

_“I don’t know. I guess it’s technically a square if you count the pharmacy.”_

“Do you want to start getting out more?”

_“I don’t know. Some guys from work invited me out for drinks, but I’m pretty antisocial. Half by choice and half by virtue of having a shitty personality.”_

“What makes you think that?”

_“Maybe because last month when I was freaking out I didn't have anyone else to call.”_

“I think you’re being too hard on yourself. For what it’s worth, I was the same a while back. I was in a bad place and this was the only number I had.”

‘A while back,’ as in four months ago. And he’s probably worse off now than he was back then.

 _“Is that why you decided to work there?”_ Eddie asks.

“Yeah,” he replies.

_“That’s really cool. I definitely couldn’t handle it.”_

_I can’t either._

“So why’d you move here?” Richie asks, desperate to change the subject.

 _“Work,”_ Eddie replies. _“I just finished grad school up in Massachusetts. I’ve been hanging out in college towns for the last seven years, so figured I’d relocate someplace where no one gives a shit about football.”_

Richie gives a short laugh. “You came to the right place then. How do you like your job so far?”

_“It’s fine. I work in one of those fuck-off skyscrapers in Manhattan. It’s weird though. I’m not next to any windows, so sometimes I forget I’m two thousand feet in the air. Sometimes I remember and start freaking out.”_

They talk for a while longer, Richie asking questions and Eddie answering. They talk about Eddie’s job, his gripes with the subway system, and his unsuccessful search for a compatible therapist. Eventually Richie’s eyes wander over to his monitor, and he realizes that forty minutes have already passed.

“Hey, Eddie,” he cuts him off halfway through a sentence. “Sorry, I just realized we’ve been talking for more than thirty minutes.”

_“Shit, sorry! I took up way too much of your time. I really should’ve just thanked you and hung up.”_

“No, you’re good. It’s alright. You can call back anytime you want.”

_“Thanks, but I really shouldn’t be taking you away from people who actually need this.”_

“No, really, it’s okay. We get regular callers all the time. It doesn’t have to be an emergency. You can call back next week if you want. As long as I don’t have another call waiting I can talk.”

Richie tries to keep his voice steady, hoping it doesn’t come off as desperate, or weird.

 _“Um, okay. That’s really cool of you guys.”_ Eddie lets out a sigh. _“Sorry, I know I should hang up, it’s just been really nice hanging out with you. I tried calling a hotline up in Massachusetts a couple months back, and the lady basically told me I wasn’t suicidal enough to call and politely told me to fuck off.”_

“Jesus.” Richie presses a hand to his forehead.

_“Yeah, it kind of fucked me up. But thanks for talking so long. Makes it feel like you really care.”_

“I do care,” he says earnestly. “I care about everyone that calls,” he quickly tacks on.

_“I can tell. Sorry, I’ll hang up now. But can I call you again next week? If I need to?”_

“Yeah, of course. Try to call at midnight if you can. That’s when my shift starts. That way I won’t be on the line with someone else.”

And he won’t have to sit here for hours burning with anticipation.

_“Cool. Okay, have a good night. Or morning. Bye.”_

“Bye.”


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Additional warning for suicide.

Eddie calls back at midnight right on the dot. Their exchange is a bit awkward at first, but gradually they develop a rhythm, like two old friends who simply haven’t spoken in a while.

Eddie starts by telling him about the anxiety attack he had at work the other day, all because he accidentally ate a cookie with peanut butter M&Ms.

“Are you allergic?” Richie asks.

_“No, which is why it’s so fucking stupid. I know I’m not allergic, but whenever I eat peanuts I feel like my throat’s going to start closing up.”_

He tells Richie about how boring his job is; how they only give him about three hours of actual work per day and then expect him to blindly stare at his monitor for the next five, pretending to write emails or flipping through spreadsheets or whatever the fuck. He talks about how useless it all feels; how he’s already starting to regret the course of his education and career; how he’s always struggled to make friends, and being out in the real world isn’t doing him any favors. That’s when their half hour runs out.

He calls again the next week, and immediately starts talking about his mom. He tells Richie about how even in grad school he had to siphon off part of his stipend to help support her, and now that he has a real job she’s demanding even more. She expects him to call her every single day so she can interrogate him about what he’s eating and beg him to move back home. He describes the weird feeling he gets when he talks to her; for some reason, simply listening to her makes him feel sick. The sound of her voice always seems to awaken some long-dormant ache, then he’ll spend the rest of the evening obsessively monitoring every stray sensation, convinced there’s something inside him that’s wrong and screaming for help.

The next week he confesses that he’s twenty-five and still a virgin. He’s terrified of sex and always has been, and every year his celibacy just gets weirder and weirder. He’s never even been on a real date before. No one’s ever asked him. And sometimes he gets so fucking lonely he leaves the TV on all night just to fill the silence.

As their conversations progress, week after week, Richie can’t ignore the guilty suspicion that he’s starting to fall in love with this man.

It’s weird; there doesn’t seem to be anything special about him. Sure, he’s funny and witty, but Richie knows plenty of guys like that in the comedy circuit. He likes the sound of Eddie’s voice, but there’s nothing remarkable about it. They don’t even have comparable baggage. If they had similar backstories that might explain his involuntary attraction, but no, the only thing they seem to have in common is they’re both men in their mid-twenties living in Brooklyn.

If he’s being honest with himself, he’s probably just mixing up attraction and fondness. Richie’s never been all that adept at making friends either. Sure, he’s good at socializing, but there’s no one he’d feel comfortable calling up at 2am in a crisis. And besides, when you spend six hours a week working for a suicide hotline, having a casual conversation with an averagely neurotic person is practically a pleasant coffee date.

Besides, he doesn’t even know what Eddie looks like, and hasn’t received any hints so far. He supposes it doesn’t matter since they’ll never meet in real life. The ethics forbid it, but of course the illicit nature only makes Richie want it more. After all, if they can foster this level of intimacy through an anonymous phone line, he can’t imagine how overwhelming it would feel in person. At the moment it simply feels like they’re two friends living in separate cities with plans to meet up eventually, but they haven’t nailed down any dates.

Of course he knows that Eddie is not his friend. He’s aware that their relationship is fundamentally lopsided; Richie knows some of Eddie’s deepest secrets, but Eddie doesn’t even know what Richie does for his day job. Richie is simply a sounding board, and Eddie probably doesn’t harbor any deeper feelings for him than he would for a therapist. It’s not real intimacy, Richie reminds himself. It’s a series of conversations and nothing more. Not even conversations really, which imply mutual exchange, more like judgment-free confessionals.

But still, over the next few weeks Richie finds his infatuation growing worse. It creeps into his thoughts whenever his mind is idle. The office that Richie works for only services a small corner of Brooklyn, which means that Eddie must live close by. They might even live in the same building. They could be neighbors, but would never even know it.

Ethically, Richie knows that he should probably tell Eddie it’s time to phase out their calls. Eddie managed to find a therapist a couple weeks back, so now their Wednesday night sessions have more or less turned into social calls. Richie will hang up if there’s someone else waiting, but he knows this isn’t what the line is meant for. Sure, it’s normal for them to get regular callers. Rebecca spends almost every week chatting with an old woman who lost three husbands and has been living with stage four liver cancer. Carmina gets regular calls from a man with schizophrenia who’s been in and out of rehab, but obviously Eddie is in a much better place than either of them.

But Richie can’t bear to tell him to stop. That half-hour call is the only thing that helps him get through the rest of the night, and the rest of the week if he’s being honest. Sure, Richie never shares anything about himself. He was told to never talk about himself unless he’s asked a direct question, and even then he should find a way to spin it back around to the person calling. But god, he wants to tell Eddie everything. He wants to tell him about the insects gnawing at his brain, all the secrets he’s been holding, how he rotates between three different liquor stores so the owners won’t know how much he drinks.

He wants to tell Eddie everything, but not here. He wants to meet him someplace private. He wants to take him back to his apartment and hold him through the night. He wants to kiss him, make love to him, he wants to bring Eddie home and make his small world just a little bit bigger.

 _“I want to tell you something,”_ Eddie says one night.

“Okay, cool,” Richie replies, leaning over his desk like they’re at a sleepover and Eddie’s about to whisper something in his ear.

Eddie lets out a short laugh. _“It’s really not that bad. You probably think I killed someone or something.”_

“I don’t get paid to think.”

_“You don’t get paid anything.”_

“Point still stands.”

Eddie laughs again, and Richie’s face feels like it could split in half from the strength of his smile.

 _“Yeah, so, um…”_ Eddie starts, trailing off. Richie listens patiently, curious and intrigued.

_“So I think I might be attracted to men.”_

Richie’s entire body shudders. His vision turns glassy. Is this real? It can’t be real. Good fortune doesn’t just drop out of the sky like this. Not for him at least.

“Hey, um, just so you know, I’m gay.” The words come out before Richie can script them. “So… if there’s anything in that area you want to talk about, or if you need advice or anything, you can talk to me.”

Richie almost laughs at his own expense. Apparently he’s now New York’s #1 Homosexual, dishing out advice to all the poor closet cases. Because he’s the pinnacle of healthy adjustment. He’s the ideal. A twenty-five-year old broke dock worker who’s never been on a real date and hasn’t slept with one person more than five times. A guy who does stand-up where he jokes about how fucking straight he is; whose tether to the gay community is only as strong as the guy he buys his weed from. He can’t give Eddie anymore advice than he could get from a pamphlet over at Planned Parenthood. That’s not even mentioning the fact that the first person he came out to is a virtual stranger on a suicide hotline. That’s a fun piece of trivia to bulk up his backstory.

 _“Oh sweet,”_ Eddie replies, obviously thrown a bit off-guard. _“That’s lucky. For me anyway.”_ He ends his sentence with a nervous laugh: one that Richie involuntarily mirrors.

God, he can’t fucking believe this. It’s too good to be true. This is the best news he could’ve hoped for. Or maybe it’s the worst. His obsession has been growing in intensity, and this new information will only exacerbate it further. Now that he has confirmation that Eddie could in theory like him in return… god, is this what it’s like to be straight?

Eddie clears his throat. Richie can picture him sitting on his bed, phone pressed to his ear.

_“Yeah, so, I don’t really remember when it started. I think I was pretty young, but for some reason I can’t really remember. When’d you figure it out?”_

Richie goes still. This is the first time he’s ever talked about it, and honestly, he’s not sure if he’s ready.

“I don’t really remember either. But I think I was also pretty young.”

Richie feels like he’s about to start crying, but he can’t let Eddie know that this is his milestone too. He can’t let on how much this means to him. How much Eddie means to him.

 _“Can I ask when you came out?”_ Eddie asks.

“I haven’t.”

_“To your family?”_

_To anyone. Except you._

“Yeah,” Richie replies. “It’s a work in progress.”

He wants to ask for Eddie’s number so badly. He wants to go home and call him and talk through the night about all the things he can’t say here.

Eddie hums. _“Is it weird to say I’ve never been this close with another gay person before?”_ he asks.

“That’s not weird.”

‘Me too,’ Richie almost adds.

Eddie lets out a short laugh. “ _It’s funny, I was actually really scared about telling you.”_

“Why?”

_“I don’t know. I guess because I don’t really know anything about you. I mean, you seem like a nice guy, but I don’t know anything about your politics, or how old you are. I don’t know anything really.”_

“I voted for Gore, I’m twenty-five, and I’m a pisces. Anything else?”

 _“No, I think that’s everything,”_ Eddie replies sarcastically, and they both give short laughs.

Then they drift into silence, but Richie can’t tell whether it’s comfortable or awkward. Part of him just wants to sit here and take a break from talking, just listen to Eddie breathing on the other end of the line. He closes his eyes and imagines them lying in bed together, placing a palm between Eddie’s shoulder blades just to feel his back rising and falling.

_“Can I ask you something more personal?”_

“Go ahead.”

Richie holds his breath. This might be it. Maybe just this once, things will fall into place. Eddie doesn’t respond right away, and the anticipation builds until he can barely think.

 _Please,_ Richie begs. _Fucking hell, toss me some scraps. Please._

 _“Does it ever scare you?”_ Eddie asks, quiet and remote.

Richie’s excitement crumbles. That’s definitely not what he was expecting, and it opens up a well of disappointment. And confusion. How the hell is he supposed to answer something like that?

“Yeah, it does,” he says softly with a small nod.

 _“And how do you deal with it?_ ”

Richie fundamentally does not have an answer to that question. How does he deal with it? He deals with it by putting on a passing act so overcompensated it’s laughable. He copes by cutting off men who grow too close and imprinting on ones he can’t have. He distracts himself by absorbing the suffering of others, and the worst part is he can’t see a way out, even though there’s objectively nothing standing in his way.

He’s just sitting here, alone and waiting.

“Shit, sorry, I have someone else on the line,” Richie lies. “Talk to you next week?”

_“Yeah, see you–“_

Richie hangs up the phone before he can finish the sentence. Then he just sits there, confused and cautiously hopeful.

The rest of the night passes without incident. It’s mainly low-risk calls and concerned family members. Once dawn arrives he walks down to the subway and for the first time in months doesn’t even have a passing thought about jumping onto the rails, a feat he doesn’t register until he’s already halfway home.

That week he oscillates rapidly between unfiltered joy and radical self-loathing. One morning he buys a coffee from a newsstand and suddenly envisions getting one for Eddie too: handing it over and feeling their fingers brush. But then a couple minutes later he’s cursing under his breath in public, chastising himself for being a stupid piece of shit. He’s never going to meet Eddie, so cut this shit out. Stop fantasizing about him. Stop thinking about him. He’s not your fucking boyfriend. But hey, he’s not your patient either. There’s no contract between them. If Eddie stopped calling, what would be the harm if they met up in person? Richie doesn’t have a psych degree. He didn’t take the Hippocratic oath. Sure, his coworkers would frown on it, and most of his friends too, but hey, it wasn’t their fucking business. People meet in all sorts of strange ways. Besides, they’re already two men, so what’s a little extra outside judgment?

But then he’ll spiral into an inescapable well of self-doubt as he grapples with the very real possibility that Eddie wouldn’t want to see him even if he asked. And why would he? What does Richie have to offer him? He’s just a step above a therapy journal. He’s replaceable.

But Eddie came out to him. He’s the first person he felt safe telling. That’s not nothing. That’s so far from nothing. Eddie must feel something too. How could he not?

Richie spends Tuesday night getting so fucking high it feels like his lungs are ready to float away. He eats canned peaches in the darkness and laughs at nothing while people-watching from his window. He thinks about what it would be like to have Eddie here with him: to finally get a taste of that magic the media promised. To be young and broke in this city with nothing but the person you would die and kill for, living off canned food and minimum wage jobs in a tiny-ass apartment with cracks along every wall. He imagines music from fifty years ago playing in the distance, the echoes wafting up the fire escape and into his apartment, which is suddenly bigger, cleaner, with warm light pooling across the polished floors.

He imagines holding Eddie close as they rock in time with the music. Eddie gently stroking his hair with one hand and the other pressed flat against his back. Richie’s chin resting on his shoulder, nesting in the scent of his hair and clothes. Finally he has another body to share. Someone who will hold him and love him and slowly exhume the shame and hatred that’s been growing around his organs since before he can remember.

He’s smiling all the next day. By the time he makes it to his desk he’s shaking with excitement and nerves.

He’ll ask Eddie, he’s decided. He’ll ask if he wants to talk outside of all this. He needs to take a chance. It’s now or never. If he keeps this up for much longer his crush will only get worse, which will make it even more painful when Eddie inevitably stops calling. But if he takes his chance now, even if he’s rejected, at least it’ll be a clean break. He’ll survive. He’s weak, but not that weak. He’ll live.

The phone rings exactly at midnight and he answers it without delay.

“New York City Suicide Prevention. Thank you for reaching out. How can I help you?”

 _“You’ve been saying that faster and faster,”_ Eddie scolds him.

“I want to get to the good shit.”

_“I wish my therapist started calling it that.”_

They chat for a while about virtually nothing, Richie smiling and smitten, just enjoying the steady rhythm of Eddie’s voice. This feeling, whatever it is, it’s amazing. It’s euphoric. This feels eerily similar to how people describe falling in love.

 _“So I have some news,”_ Eddie says around the fifteen minute mark.

“Oh yeah?”

_“Yeah. It’s not a big deal, but someone asked me out.”_

The music inside Richie’s head come to a screeching halt. He feels like he just opened up the newspaper to see the obituary of a friend.

“Really? Who?” he asks. _You don’t fucking know anybody! That’s why you’re fucking calling me!_

_“Just this girl I’ve been talking to at work. She brought me coffee a few times. Yeah, she asked if I wanted to see a movie this weekend. I don’t know if it’ll go anywhere, but she seems alright.”_

Richie’s confused and trying to keep up. Why the fuck is he going out with a woman? He’s gay; what the fuck is he doing?

But then he remembers Eddie’s exact wording from last week. All he said was that he might be attracted to men, but he never said anything about women. For some reason Richie just closed the gap without thinking. Fucking idiot.

“That’s great,” Richie says, gritting through his teeth. “Getting out of your shell.”

_“Yeah, we’ll see. Is it weird that I’m really nervous? Not because I really like her. I’m just nervous that I’ll fuck it up. Or she’ll think it’s weird that I haven’t dated before.”_

“Lots of people don’t date till they’re older,” Richie says, speaking from his sample size of one.

_“Yeah, you’re right. Any advice?”_

Richie lets out a nervous laugh. Eddie has no idea how fucking funny that question is.

“I’m probably not the best person to ask. Um… what movie are you seeing?”

_“Don’t know yet. Probably–“_

Suddenly one of the lights on Richie’s phone starts flashing red and a ringing hits his ear.

“Shit, Eddie, sorry. I have another call.”

_“Cool, no worries. See you–“_

Richie can’t press the button fast enough. God, he shouldn’t be doing this. He should transfer the call to someone else. He’s already trembling, his thoughts overheated and angry, every emotion he hasn’t properly felt since adolescence rendering him useless.

“New York City Suicide Prevention. Thank you for reaching out. How can I help you?”

There’s no response, not even the sound of breathing. Richie waits ten seconds. Still no reply.

“Hello? Can you hear me?” he asks.

Again, no reply.

Richie leans back in his chair, his free hand curling around his stomach as nausea swells up in his gut.

He’ll ask again in a minute. If there’s still no response, then he’ll sit on the line until the half hour runs up. Jesus, whoever this is, he hopes they stay quiet. He wants to just sit here and ferment in the confusing, ugly cocktail of jealousy, grief, and self-loathing petrifying in his intestines.

“Would you like me to stay on the line for a while?” he asks, trying to keep his voice as neutral as he can.

Still no response.

That’s unusual. Even if people don’t want to talk, they usually give some indication that they’re listening. Maybe it’s a prank. Maybe someone dialed the number and is now leaving him on hold. That’s a pretty sick joke, but Richie wouldn’t put it past anyone. This city is full of sick fucks. Hell, maybe the person is just jerking off. Honestly, Richie wouldn’t mind. At least then he doesn’t have to pretend to care.

What hurts the most is how casual Eddie sounded. Like it didn’t occur to him how much this would hurt Richie. And why would he? Eddie doesn’t owe him fucking anything. But receiving proof that Eddie never even considered him is fucking brutal. It’s confirmation of everything Richie didn’t want to believe: he’s not special, he’s not important, what they have means nothing, and if Eddie doesn’t even like him then who the fuck will? Why is he still wasting his time here? Why doesn’t he just jump in front of that fucking train and get it over with?

A loud shot violently erupts in his ear, causing him to flinch and sharply pull the phone away from his head, the echo already vibrating in his eardrum.

He stares at the phone cautiously, then slowly brings it back to his ear.

“Hello?” he asks hesitantly. No answer. “Hello?” he says again with greater insistence, but there’s only silence.

It doesn’t take him long to process what just happened. What he heard definitely wasn’t a firecracker or a car backfiring. The gunshot was close, no more than a few inches from his ear, but dulled by the expanse of the phone line.

The strange thing is he hardly feels anything. Gunshots are a normal part of his routine. He hears them all the time, sometimes right beneath his window, and he has to assume that at least some of those bullets meet their targets. So how is this any different? People die in this city every day. Bodies wash up on the shore, homeless people freeze in the streets, and depressed lovesick fuck ups jump in front of trains. It’s normal. This is the type of situation he signed on for. When he began his training he was told that suicide-in-progress calls would be the rarest, that he could work there for an entire year without a single close call. Well, apparently this is his lucky night. He smiles to himself as the absurdity of the situation washes over him. It’s funny; it really is. Getting rejected by the boy he likes was more painful than listening to a stranger commit suicide.


	4. Chapter 4

“New York City suicide prevention thank you for reaching out how can I help you New York City suicide prevention thank you for reaching out how can I help you New York City suicide prevention thank you for reaching out how can I help you.”

Richie mutters to himself on a loop, his voice growing louder, closer to shouting, then regressing. He repeats it as he sweeps up the shattered brown glass of the empty beer bottle he threw to the floor. He doesn’t own a dustpan, so he brushes the glass into the corner and leaves it there, maybe for the next tenant to deal with. It can stay there until he’s gone.

He pulls the tab on a can of peaches, the sharp metal circle separating from the rim with a metallic scrape. Then without even thinking he mimes slashing the ragged circle over his exposed wrist. He doesn’t touch the skin; the lid is maybe two inches away. Then he does it again, moving slightly closer. And again, and again, and again as the sugary syrup drips onto his veins. He doesn’t eat any of the peaches. They sit there all day, amassing fruit flies as Richie lies in bed writhing in half-sleep as nightmares walk along his walls.

“I don’t want to be here,” he sobs, curling so tight his muscles spasm. “Please, I want to get out. Eddie, please, I want to get out.”

He’s going to lose his job now. He’s been on his last warning for weeks, and when he wakes up on Friday morning to see that he slept ten minutes past the start of his shift he knows it’s over. No one calls him to confirm. His arms have gotten too weak to do the work anyway. He hasn’t been eating much. Yet his apartment is still covered in unwashed dishes full of half-eaten meals. He swallows down three Aspirins with a beer, and three more six hours later.

He pulls out his notebook and starts writing. He just needs to get it out of his system. It’s just a journal, just therapy, dear Eddie, I love you, I’m sorry we never got to meet.

He writes frantically, the letters merging together, his words somehow crooked on the lined paper. He writes as if he’s only been given a few minutes to say his goodbyes before his lifelong incarceration.

_I’m sorry I never got to meet you. I’m sorry for being so weird. I’m sorry for making you read this. I’m sorry I couldn’t do more for you. I was stupid. I was so fucking stupid. Please have a good life. Please find someone you love. Don’t think about me. I’m not important. I’m glad I met you. This was inevitable. I’m glad I got to hear your voice._

He writes on and on, repeating the same phrases, his sentences rarely more than ten words long. He could’ve sworn the thoughts inside his head were more complex, but apparently not. He just needs to get it out of his system, write until he’s empty.

But he can’t die without seeing Eddie. He just can’t. But he’s not going to die. He’s going to work things out. Next week when he talks to Eddie again he’ll tell him. Eddie must feel something too. He’ll tell Eddie how much he means to him. He won’t be weird about it. He’ll be normal and calm. He won’t tell him he loves him. He’ll just ask him out for coffee. That’s not weird. Yeah, they’ll go out for coffee or a beer and they’ll talk like normal people and Eddie will see that he’s a decent person and then they’ll see each other more and more and things will work out.

Richie stands above the bathroom sink and imagines bringing his head down hard against the porcelain corner.

He’s tangentially aware that if he were a client on the phone he’d be telling himself to get away from any sharp objects. But no, he’s not at the breaking point yet. He doesn’t have a plan. It’s not serious until he has a time, a date, and a plan.

Richie nods to himself while hyperventilating. Sitting in bed, nodding so fast his neck might just snap. He sobs until his ribs ache, but there’s no relief. He slaps the sensitive skin of his forearm until it turns red, clenches his legs until they cramp, and holds his breath until his lungs burn.

Wednesday finally arrives. Richie mutters to himself on the train with his head bowed low, trying to keep his mouth shut. Trying to keep his hands from moving in ways he doesn’t ask. Trying not to shout, trying not to shake, trying not to cry. It’s almost time, he tells himself. Just a few more minutes and you’ll get to talk to Eddie. That’s worth staying alive for. He wants to talk to you. He’ll be sad if you’re dead. You don’t want to make him sad, right?

While sitting at his desk he has to resist the urge to slap himself across the face. Breathe in for seven and out for four. He shouldn’t be here. It’s irresponsible, and probably dangerous. He shouldn’t be trusted with helping a second grader with their math homework. His head is a violent, reeking cesspool sloshing against the confines of his skull: burning, screaming, disgusting sludge dripping through the cracks between the plates and circulating through his bloodstream. He clenches and unclenches his fingers, watching his knuckles fold and flatten in stunned silence, like he can’t believe his nerves are still receiving signals.

It hurts. It hurts so fucking bad. He’s rotting, he’s unraveling, unspooling. He needs to leave. Make up some excuse and get the fuck out before he can get anyone hurt. After Eddie calls he’ll leave. He needs to pull himself together for Eddie’s sake, even if all he can manage are a handful of hums that’s still better than nothing. He just needs to hear Eddie’s voice. It’ll ground him, shut up all the thoughts telling him to do stupid shit.

He doesn’t even care about whoever the fuck Eddie’s dating. It’s not important. Whoever she is isn’t important. What they have is special, and anyone off the street would agree. Richie just has to stay calm, stay level, and rational, that’s his job. He’ll be okay. But then he imagines Eddie talking about whoever this girl is, how great she is, how nice, how smart, how good she fucks, and Richie will bash his head against the desk until it bleeds.

The phone rings, and Richie flinches so hard he almost falls out of his chair. He grips the table; this isn’t good. They know you’re crazy. They can all see it, they’re just too scared to say anything. They know you shouldn’t be here. They want you to leave. Don’t pick up the phone, you piece of shit, don’t pick up the phone.

“New York City Suicide Prevention. Thank–“

 _“Hey, got you on the first try,”_ Eddie’s voice rings through high and bright, a world away from wherever Richie is. _“How you’ve been?”_

Richie wants to cry. He wants nothing more than to have a normal, friendly conversation with a person he cares about. He wants to excise his feelings like cutting the rotten parts off a strawberry.

“Not bad,” Richie answers, “How was your date?” he asks, even though it’s the last thing he wants to talk about. But he needs to know, otherwise the uncertainty will eat at him till he can’t speak.

 _“Eh, it was alright,”_ Eddie replies, somewhat dismissively, and Richie feels a small rush of hope at how unenthused he sounds.

 _“Honestly,”_ Eddie continues, _“she was kind of annoying. I mean, I’m really annoying too, but I don’t know, she just rubbed me the wrong way.”_

Richie smiles, his glasses slipping down the bridge of his nose.

“Are you going to see her again?” Richie asks, his words coming out too quickly, pressed and desperate.

_“No, probably not. It was worth a shot though.”_

Richie could throw up from relief. All that stress for nothing. It was one stupid fucking date. Why did he let himself get so fucked up over it?

And why is he still shaking? Why is he still struggling to think, to segregate and banish the dark thoughts swirling around his skull. It’s over, you piece of shit. It’s over. Just talk to Eddie like a normal person. Don’t be fucking weird. Don’t let him know how fucked up you are, that you fantasize about fucking him, and fall asleep thinking about slow dancing in your apartment. Don’t let him know how badly you want to see him. How each week you can’t see his face brings you closer to the breaking point.

 _“You still there?”_ Eddie asks.

“Yeah, I’m here,” Richie replies. Only three words, and somehow he manages to mess up the inflection.

 _“Are you okay?”_ Eddie asks, cautiously.

Shit, he can tell. He can tell how fucked up you are. Richie presses the phone hard against his ear, as if that will somehow bring him closer to the person on the other end.

“Yeah, I’m good. It’s just…” _I love you so much, please let me come home with you. I want you so badly, please._ “It’s just that I listened to someone die last week.”

There’s a pause. Richie knows he shouldn’t have said that. It’s unprofessional, but still, he needed an excuse. And honestly, that’s a far better explanation for his behavior than what he’s currently thinking. He just needs Eddie to know that he’s not crazy. Sure, he’s messed up, but for completely normal, healthy reasons.

 _“Oh my god. Fuck, I’m so sorry,”_ Eddie says, clearly at a loss for how to relate.

“It’s okay. It happens sometimes. But this was my first.”

Richie’s shamelessly trying to garner sympathy at this point. He wants Eddie to know he’s a real person. That all the shit that happens here doesn’t just run off his back. He’s a human being, so yeah, hearing someone die fucked him up a bit. That’s normal. He’s fucking normal.

_“Jesus. I know there’s nothing I can say to help, but if you want to talk about it…”_

“I can’t. HIPAA regulations.”

_“Right, of course.”_

Silence. Richie wants to scream.

 _“Hey, um,”_ Eddie says, _“if you need a night off that’s cool. I’m good. Really I’m better than good. I probably shouldn’t even be clogging up the lines anymore.”_

Richie’s sight goes red. He imagines a pair of scissors snapping a string. He envisions going forward without these cyclical calls to anchor him. What else would he have to look forward to? There’s nothing else to keep him going. Without Eddie, he has nothing. There’s no life for him beyond these calls. And it fucking kills him that Eddie obviously doesn’t feel the same. How could he not feel the same? Why would he want to stop?

“No, it’s okay. Please don’t stop calling,” Richie begs.

_“I mean, I really like talking to you, but you have a really important job and–“_

“No, please, don’t stop calling. Or hey, I can give you my home number. You can call me there.”

Richie freezes. His desk feels far away. No, he shouldn’t have said that. He fucked up. He pulled the trigger and shot himself straight in the gut. He rolled the dice, and in the silence he watches them dance around the table.

 _“… I don’t think that’s a good idea,”_ Eddie finally replies.

Richie feels like he’s standing outside his body, watching himself crumple between two crashing cars.

“Why not? We probably live within a mile of each other. We can meet up and talk in person. Please, I want to see you.”

He’s laying out all his cards. He’s betting his life savings. If he loses this round, he’ll have nothing left.

_“Isn’t that… unethical?”_

“Yeah, probably, but I don’t care.”

_If you say no I’m going to kill myself. Please don’t say no. Please._

_“I think I should go. Is there someone there you can talk to?”_

“No, please don’t hang up. Please, I–“

The dial tone hits him with the force of a train.

He sits there, engulfed in shock, then passively lowers the phone back into the cradle.

That’s it then. A soothing sense of clarity covers him like a blanket. After his shift is over he’s going to walk down to the subway station and jump onto the tracks. He has a time, a place, and a plan. He made it. He’s finally there.

He smiles. It’ll be over soon. He doesn’t have to be afraid of the future anymore. He can go somewhere else. Someplace where he can’t feel pain anymore. Where he won’t remember Eddie, or anything that’s happened here. He’ll be safe. Nothing will ever hurt him again. His brain will be smashed and useless. It’ll just lie there on the tracks like the dead meat it always has been: all his memories, fears, and emotions trampled by sharp steel.

There’s a strange sense of power in knowing that no one will ever be able to hurt him again. Everyone else will still be here: crying over their breakups, bankruptcies, and cancers, but he’ll be someplace where none of that will matter. He won’t even remember what those things are.

He’s like that kid who gets tagged on purpose so he can sit in the shade for the rest of the game. He can sleep under the trees and play with the grass while everyone else is busy running and fighting and killing each other. He wants to lie down in the shade and close his eyes, content to never get back up.

He feels like his consciousness is straining against his skin, begging to get out. A million hands fighting to escape through his pores. He needs to pierce a pair of scissors through his skull and let his mind escape and dissolve. Mutilate his brain until it gives in. Let me out, let me out, he wants to scream. Please, let me out.

Richie pushes out his chair, stands up, takes three steps, then buckles to his knees and vomits.

Two of his coworkers rush over. One has four children, so he knows she’s not squeamish. He’s hardly eaten anything, so it doesn’t last long. Then she pulls him back and encourages him to lie down, keep his head near the floor. The cold tile feels nice.

“I’m sorry,” he whispers, the wall spinning in circles. “I’m sorry.”


	5. Chapter 5

They call it the decompression room: a converted office with an old couch and a couple of potted plants that don’t get enough sunlight. There’s a TV with no cable, and a handful of outdated magazines that look like cast-offs from a dentist’s office, splayed out on a coffee table that someone probably brought from home.

His supervisor helped him off the floor and found him a clean shirt from the lost and found. Then she offered him a dose of Valium, which thankfully knocked him the fuck out. By the time he opens his eyes there’s daylight peaking through the slated blinds, falling in stripes on the off-brown carpet. His head is pulsing and his mouth tastes like garbage. He clenches his eyes shut, hoping to fall back asleep. Maybe if he stays real quiet they’ll let him lie here all day. It’s not like there’s anywhere else he needs to be.

Just as he’s starting to doze off again, he hears a knock, and begrudgingly opens his eyes to see his supervisor Lucy waving through the small window in the center of the door. He raises his hand a bit, letting her know she can come in. As she turns the knob Richie begins the laborious process of pushing himself into an upright position. His vision briefly goes black as his blood reorients itself, forcing him to shut his eyes to stave off the vertigo. Then he reaches forward to grab his glasses from the coffee table, along with the unopened water bottle someone left him.

“How’re you feeling?” Lucy asks, stepping over to stand by the couch.

Richie shrugs, then unscrews the lid and takes a long gulp.

“What time is it?” he asks.

She checks her watch. “About 6:30.”

 _I was supposed to be dead by now,_ Richie thinks to himself. He considers saying it aloud, but that’s a can of worms he definitely doesn’t need to open right now.

“Do you want a ride home?” she asks. “We can stop for breakfast if you’re up for it.”

Richie’s stomach cramps in response, and suddenly he can feel the water he just swallowed swishing around his gut. It’s probably been at least fifteen hours since he last ate. Damn, if he’d killed himself, then he never would’ve gotten to eat again. He would have died hungry, which is a sad thought in and of itself.

“Yeah, sure.” He nods, then pushes himself up with a groan, his vision darkening again as the blood rushes down to his feet.

He follows her out to her car and takes the passenger side, feeling gross for how terrible he smells in comparison to the crisp scent of air freshener. It’s still too early for the morning traffic, but the summer sun is bright over the horizon, forcing Richie to squint as he dangles his elbow out the window and watches as all the business owners begin setting up their storefronts. It’s probably been at least four months since he last rode in a car, and he forgot how much he missed it.

Lucy takes him to a diner and encourages him to order whatever he likes. He’s been trying to keep a budget on his groceries, so getting a $7 plate of bacon, eggs, and hashbrowns feels like a treat. Between bites he sips his over-sweetened coffee while she chats about her kids, her husband’s job, and some stories he can tell she’s repeated many times before. By the time the waitress drops off the check Richie’s hardly said a word, but he was enjoying the one-sided exchange.

She pulls the check over to her side of the booth, but doesn’t reach for her wallet. Richie can tell by the delay that there’s still more she wants to say. Clearly the pleasantries are over, and now he has to face the music.

“You do stand-up, right?” she asks. “You haven’t talked about it in a while.”

“I stopped going,” he says noncommittally before taking another sip of coffee.

“Can I ask why?”

He shrugs. “Got busy.” He keeps his eyes lowered on his empty plate.

She nods, clearly not buying it.

“Do you like working at the hotline?” she asks, her tone too cheery to be casual.

“Yeah, I like it,” he replies on impulse. “I mean, no, I don’t like it. Actually, it’s the most miserable job I’ve ever had. But someone’s gotta do it. And I like helping people.”

_I like hurting myself. And at least this is more productive than cutting myself or picking fights with strangers or drinking till I wind up on a slab._

“Do you feel obligated to stay?” she asks bluntly, and he shifts his eyes to stare out onto the street.

“I like talking to people,” he replies, a neutral non-answer.

She smiles. “You’re very easy to talk to. You’re very good at making conversation. When other people get tongue-tied, you always know how to keep things moving.”

“I think you’re giving me too much credit.”

“No, I’m not. And I think you always know what to say because you’re very good at putting yourself in other people’s shoes. And maybe you empathize with them a bit too much.” She’s picking at her straw wrapper, fidgeting, tearing it into little pieces. “Maybe this job isn’t the best for you,” she finally says.

Richie keeps staring out the window. He knew this was coming. After last night it’d be crazy to allow him to stay. But still, it stings.

“Yeah, maybe not.” He finally turns in her direction. “Are you firing me?”

“I’m… restructuring you. If you want to keep volunteering we definitely have places for you. Positions that are just as important, but not as hands-on. By the way, do you have health insurance?”

Richie laughs. “I don’t even have a job.”

“I’ll ask around and see if I can find you something full-time. Something with insurance.”

 _‘So I can get some meds?’_ he almost adds, but decides against it. The implication was already clear in her tone.

He sighs and looks back down at his plate, slowly spinning his coffee cup in circles on the linoleum tabletop.

“Thank you,” he says, genuinely.

“Don’t mention it.” She finally reaches into her purse to pull out her wallet. She puts a twenty down on the check and slides it to the edge.

“Do you live alone?” she asks while unfolding her sunglasses.

He nods.

“Do you want to stay with me for a night or two? My son left for college two years ago. You can take his bed.”

Richie almost turns down the offer on impulse. He feels like he would dirty up her home just by stepping inside. But then he imagines returning to his own apartment: that disgusting glorified utility closet where he’s spent the last several months unraveling like a shirt caught on a nail, and realizes he’d rather walk the streets all day than return to the uninviting stench of his beer-stained mattress.

“I don’t want to intrude,” he says with faux opposition.

“You’re not intruding at all. We like having guests.”

With that, she stands from her side of the booth and he follows suit. They walk towards the door and she gives a wave to the hostess. The bell dings as they step outside, the sun even brighter than it was before.

“Hey, can I come back to work for one more night?” Richie asks as they’re walking back to her car. “I have a regular that always calls at midnight. I want to say goodbye to him. Let him know I won’t be there anymore.”

“Sure,” she says with a smile before unlocking her car.

They stop by his apartment so he can grab some clothes, which he’ll have to wash as soon as he gets to her place anyway. By the time they arrive at her apartment in the Bronx, her husband has already left for work and her younger son is on the bus to school. She offers him another dose of Valium, which he accepts without any coaxing. Then he takes a shower and crashes on the twin-size mattress in her son’s shoebox of a bedroom. It’s funny how when kids go to college their room’s don’t grow up with them. Her son’s bedroom looks like it could belong to a twelve-year-old, not that Richie has any frame of reference. It just feels like a kid’s room, and it’s strangely comforting.

He dozes throughout the day, briefly waking up to do his laundry and smoke a couple cigarettes out on the balcony, then quietly watch TV while Lucy’s still asleep.

Apparently she has a habit of taking in strays because her husband hardly seems bothered by Richie’s presence, in fact he just seems pleased to have a babysitter. Her younger son Jeremy is seven, and while his parents are cooking dinner, he pulls Richie onto the carpet and recites the detailed backstories of all his toy cars: describing all the drama and salacious scandals brewing between the various drivers.

“This car is the fastest but its brakes keep breaking and all the drivers keep dying. These guys keep trying to fix the brakes but this driver keeps breaking them again and again because he wants to win the race and he doesn’t care if the other drivers die.”

Richie doesn’t have to contribute much to keep the conversation moving. For about an hour he sits there, listening as the kid spins melodramatic stories full of bitter rivalries and insurance disasters. Then after dinner Jeremy makes him watch Batman, and enthusiastically describes everything that’s going to happen before the start of each scene.

How do kids have such good fucking memories? Richie can’t remember shit from his childhood. Was he ever like this? He must have been. It’s hard comprehend that there was once a point in his life where he was so eager and engaged: soaking up gallons of information and effortlessly repeating it verbatim. At twenty-five he can barely remember his shoe size, or what subway routes he’s supposed to take, or his own phone number.

Around ten he crawls back into bed, exhausted after his long day of doing absolutely nothing. He lies there for a while, thinking of nothing in particular, eventually rolling over to glance at the clock on the nightstand, only to see that it’s half-past midnight, which means he almost killed himself exactly twenty-four hours ago.

How wild is that shit? In some other timeline, his parents would probably be driving down to New York right now to identify his body. He never would have gotten to eat breakfast, or ride in Lucy's car, or watch Jeremy build lego obstacle courses for his cars. He would’ve just disappeared. And the funny thing is, despite how lovesick he’s been for weeks, ever since last night, he’s hardly thought about Eddie at all. In fact, Eddie’s been so absent from his mind that their last phone call feels more than a year ago. And as he gradually falls asleep, he comforts himself with the thought that maybe it’s all over. Maybe it was just a bad mix of insomnia and loneliness, some sort of late onset puberty, and now Eddie will simply fade away, and he can emerge unscathed.

That rosy illusion is shattered the very next morning when his brain decides the honeymoon period is over and it’s time to watch a non-stop-full-color-high-graphic clipshow of the Richie Tozier Is a Piece of Shit Show. He involuntarily replays their last call over and over again, cringing out of his skin. Sure, objectively he’s able to recognize how stupid it is that he almost killed himself because a guy he’s never met didn’t want to go out with him, but he’s consoled enough crying teenagers to know that logic isn’t an effective remedy in these situations.

He wishes he could write off his attraction to Eddie as nothing more than some cortisol-induced fever dream, but the truth is he really does care about him. He likes to think it was more than desperation. Their personalities were too compatible, their voices blending seamlessly, and Richie’s sure that if they had originally met in person, he would have fallen in love with him even faster.

It’s frustrating. If only they’d met outside of all this, they’d be perfect for each other. There wouldn’t be any ethics to deliberate; they could have gotten to know each other equally, reveling in their mutual dysfunction. But now Richie has to face the reality that even if he goes back next week, Eddie probably won’t call. That hurried and hysterical exchange was probably the last time they’ll ever speak, and Eddie will only remember him as that weird guy who broke his trust and shat all over a healthy professional relationship.

Richie’s never had a breakup before, but it must feel similar. This fear that he’ll never find anyone else – that no one else will ever want him. And even as he’s musing over the autopsy, he can’t help but try thinking up resurrection strategies. There must be something he can do. Sure, he fucked up, but he can fix it, somehow.

But rationally, he knows there’s nothing he can do. It’s over. He crossed a line and now he can’t walk it back. And the stupid part of his brain is telling him that if he’d just waited longer, if he’d been more open from the beginning, if he’d played his cards right, then maybe Eddie would have accepted him. Maybe he’d be with Eddie at this very moment. He knows it’s pure fantasy, but hey, he’s alive when he could very well be dead, so who says the worst case scenario always has to win?

The week passes slowly, but finally he makes it back to the building where he’s spent all his Wednesday morning for the last three months. He feels like a high school student trying to convince himself that he definitely won’t get into Harvard. If he crushes all hope from the beginning, it’ll ease the rejection. Yet here he is, still constructing imaginary conversations, like preparing for a debate, or rehearsing for a job interview: anticipating what Eddie will say, and coming up with counter-arguments and counter-counter-arguments that he knows he’ll never use.

He understands that even if Eddie calls back, it has to be the last time. They’ll say goodbye, hang up, then Richie will go home, cry about it, then get his shit together and move the fuck on.

God, why did he come here in the first place? Why did he put himself through this? He feels like a little kid who was let into an R-rated movie. He wasn’t ready for any of this. He’s too young to handle falling in love. He’s not sure if he’ll ever be ready.

The phone rings exactly at midnight.

Richie stares down at it, scared to answer; almost as scared as that very first night.

“New York City Suicide Prevention. Thank you for reaching out. How can I help you?”

_“Hey, it’s me.”_

Richie shuts his eyes tight. First he feels a small swell of triumph, followed by agonizing embarrassment, then bittersweet heartbreak.

“Hi,” Richie says in return, all his contingency plans wiped clean.

“… I’m sorry,” he finally settles.

_“No, I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have hung up last week.”_

“No, I stepped out of line. I mean, I really fucked up.”

_“You’d just been through some really traumatic shit. You had every right to be emotional. I’m sorry, I just… somehow forgot that I was talking to a real person. You know? You call places like this and you expect everyone to be these hyper-rational therapy bots. And I always liked that you weren’t that. And I had to keep reminding myself that this was just your job. And when you started acting like a real person it just caught me off-guard. I’m sorry.”_

Richie internally curls in on himself, both in gratitude and embarrassment.

“Still, I can be a real person on my own time.” His voice comes out shaky and clipped.

 _“Are you alright?”_ Eddie asks.

Richie nods his head on autopilot. “Yeah, I’m good. It’s just… this is my last night.”

A pause.

_“Did something happen?”_

Richie lets out an involuntary laugh. “Yeah, a lot of things. I actually came back just to say goodbye to you.”

_“So you won’t be working there anymore?”_

“No. But don’t worry, it’s definitely for the best.”

Richie hears Rebecca quietly crying at her desk several meters away. Carmina is gently soothing someone in her supernaturally parental voice. A car honks in the street, and the joints of Richie’s chair creak minutely as he slowly swivels left to right.

_“Can I give you my number then? I mean, if you’re not working there anymore, then it won’t be a breach of ethics if we see each other outside, right?”_

Richie suddenly feels like a lost soul being tempted by the devil. No, he can’t fucking do this. He’s not strong enough.

“That’s probably not a good idea,” he replies, and it just might be the most painful thing he’s ever said.

Eddie sighs. _“Yeah, you’re right.”_

Richie presses the phone tighter against his ear. He still has time. He can still salvage this. He can get everything he’s always wanted. He just has to ask.

 _“I’ll miss you,”_ Eddie says, and Richie can tell he means it.

“I’ll miss you too.” Richie sniffs loudly, running his free hand down his face.

_“How ‘bout I give you my number just in case? You don’t have to call. Just so you have it. I don’t like the idea of you just disappearing.”_

For some reason, that final word is what does him in. Disappearing. If they never speak again, then it doesn’t matter whether or not Richie’s still alive. From Eddie’s perspective, he’ll just be gone. Can Richie really afford to let any part of himself disappear like that?

“Yeah, okay,” he replies, reaching for a pen. He balances the phone between his ear and shoulder as he pulls off the lid and brings it to the back of his hand. “Go ahead, I’m ready.”

Eddie recites the ten-digit string of numbers, and Richie dutifully transcribes them, pressing down harder than necessary, making sure the ink won’t fade.

“Thanks,” he says once Eddie’s finished.

_“Anytime.”_

Richie stares down at the string of numbers. He did it; he won. Everything he wanted, inscribed onto his skin. Eddie’s safe, a tether preserved on his body.

“Hey, can I call you back in about an hour? From home?”

 _“Sure,”_ Eddie answers before Richie can second-guess himself.

“Cool,” he laughs nervously. “Talk to you then?”

_“Yeah, see you then.”_

Richie decides to walk home instead of taking the train. It’s twenty-nine blocks and takes over an hour. He passes by the fluorescent liquor stores with metal shutters halfway shut. He walks past the trash left scattered along the curb by impatient garbagemen. No one asks him for money, which is a rarity. He keeps his hands in his pockets, staring down at the cracks in the sidewalk, and trying to step over them like a kid. He watches the silhouettes of people moving behind the curtains, the square light boxes of TV screens. Planes fly over head, small red lights blinking across the starless sky.

Finally he gets to his building. He unlocks the door and trudges up the ugly, carpeted stairs that are probably too steep to meet the fire code. Finally he arrives at his door, and when he turns the key he’s greeted by the smell of rotten food and a bathroom that hasn’t been cleaned in over six months. He unlocks the window and pushes it open; at least the air is fresher up on the third floor.

It’s hot too. He’s wearing too many layers for August. He pulls off his shirt and socks, then climbs onto his mattress and flicks on the single-bulb lamp by his bed. Then he lies there on his dirty sheets, staring at the phone sitting on his nightstand. There are no messages, but he wasn’t expecting any.

Finally he picks up the receiver and presses it between his shoulder and ear so he can dial the string of numbers scrawled on the back of his hand. He punches them in as slow as he can, each button part of a melody he might never hear again.

The phone rings twice, then an answer.

 _“Hello?”_ Eddie asks, even though he obviously knows who it is.

“Hey,” Richie replies, trying to sound casual and upbeat, as if he were just a friend calling any other night.

 _“Hey,”_ Eddie returns.

Richie toys with the curled cord. He had a whole hour to think about what he wanted to say, but he was never all that good at preparing for tests. He’s been dreaming about this very moment for months: the opportunity to be completely alone with Eddie, safe at home where no one else can hear his secrets. But now that he finally has what he wanted more than anything, all he wants to do is fall asleep with Eddie’s arms wrapped around his chest.

And he could have that. He could ask Eddie to come over, finally see him face to face, kiss him, beg him to never leave.

 _“Is there anything you want to talk about?”_ Eddie asks with an awkward laugh, one that Richie can’t manage to return.

“Not really.”

They lie there in the quiet for a while longer, steadily synchronizing their breathing in some parody of two lovers falling asleep side by side.

“Hey, um…” Richie starts, and stops, afraid to commit to what he’s about to say.

 _“Yeah?”_ Eddie asks softly, intimately.

“I’m just going to call you this once,” Richie chokes out, his disposition shifting from placid melancholy to rib-splitting pain in record speed. “This is the only time I’ll call,” he sobs, terrified of the promise he just made.

He knows it’s the right decision. He knows it’s what grownups are supposed to do. The scales are too uneven, the potential for tragedy too severe. But Jesus, it hurts so fucking bad.

Eddie sighs. _“Okay,”_ he replies, seemingly at peace. “ _But hey, if we see each other on the street or something, can we talk then?”_

Richie nods. “Yeah,” he answers with a small laugh.

It’s not beyond possibility. If they meet again someplace else, Richie will accept it as a sign. Besides, he could recognize Eddie’s voice from across a crowded room. No matter how much time passes, even if his feelings for Eddie grow distant and vague, he won’t forget his voice. And if he hears it, he’ll run for it.

 _“Cool,”_ Eddie says, before falling silent once again.

Richie lies there on his side, dreading the inevitable act of hanging up. He can’t fucking do it. This is his only window, and he wishes he could stay on the line for days on end, even if neither of them say another word.

Eddie sniffs on the other end, the first sign that his composure is eroding. _“Do you want to talk or do you just need to cry?”_

Richie fucking breaks. “Cry,” he manages to say, right before his chest splits in two.

 _“Go ahead,”_ Eddie whispers. _“Cry all you need.”_

Richie doesn’t need permission. He starts crying so hard his voice box can’t even produce proper sound. It comes out hollow, a mangled exhale, his whole body caving in on itself like the snow tunnels he vaguely remembers building as a kid. The choking pain rips him apart and impales him anew. He cries for all those nights he refused to let himself break, finally voiding the pain of every distraught caller who’s taken up residence in his head. He cries as his ribs ache and his eyes burn and his skin feels like wallpaper that’s curling and stripping off a decrepit wall. It’s the type of cry he imagines one reserves for the days or hours before death.

Except he’s not going to die. For the sake of something, he’s going to keep going. And if he’s lucky, maybe he’ll find Eddie again along the way.

It goes on and on, infinite like a dream. But everyone has to wake up eventually.

 _“It’s been half-an-hour,”_ Eddie says reluctantly, and Richie laughs.

“Yeah, you’re right.”

He takes a deep breath, but it doesn’t quell the dizziness. It feels like his bed is spinning in slow circles. His arm is cramping from holding the phone to his ear for so long.

He’s never had to do this before: say goodbye to a friend or lover knowing they would probably never meet again. No one has ever meant enough to him, and he wouldn’t wish this pain on anyone.

 _“Will you be okay?”_ Eddie asks, quietly.

“Yeah, I’ll be okay,” Richie replies, calm as he can. “Thank you.”

That’s all he has left to say.

_“You’re welcome. Bye.”_

“Goodbye.”

He places the receiver back into the cradle, unsure which of them hung up first. Then he goes to the bathroom, rinses his face, cleans his glasses, and washes Eddie’s number off the back of his hand.


End file.
